News

Korfball New Zealand has recently been informed that the next Asia Oceania Korfball Championship for senior national teams will be in China in March/April 2010. This will be a qualification event for the 2011 World Championships, which will also be held in China.

We need to start work to prepare a New Zealand team for this tournament. At an early stage we need to test levels of interest among players to ensure that we will have a viable and competitive squad. We therefore seek expressions of interest from those who wish to participate.

As in previous squad situations, as a worst case scenario, all players involved should budget to fund themselves through the squad preparation and for travel, accommodation and other associated tournament costs. As in the past, Korfball New Zealand will pursue all feasible fund-raising options. While we are confident, there is no guarantee of success for any fund-raising activities, hence players must be prepared to make the entire financial commitment. At this stage it is not possible to say precisely what the per player cost for preparation and participation in this tournament could be, but based on previous tournaments, it might be up to $8,000. Of course, this is just an initial budget figure based on zero fund-raising: we hope and expect that (a) by careful planning we will be able to reduce the total budget and (b)individual contributions required for participation will be considerably less than that.

One factor that we are likely to need to take into account with this squad, which has not been such an important variable in the past, is that a number of those who have previously represented New Zealand are now resident overseas. In some cases these players are playing regular korfball at a level that we do not yet have in New Zealand. It therefore makes sense to include them in our consideration. Along with New Zealand resident players, players based overseas who are interested and eligible to play for New Zealand are invited to express an interest in participating in the New Zealand squad for the AOKC 2010. When we have a more complete picture of the levels of interest, and the circumstances of those who wish to pursue this opportunity, we will be better placed to progress planning.

We are also looking for expressions of interest from people interested in being involved with this project on a non-playing basis, that is in management, coaching, fund-raising and other supporting capacities.

If you are interested, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Christine Clark on 0274990142 or christine(at)corpgroup(dot)co(dot)nz. To maximise our chances of success, we require an early indication of interest and therefore request that all expressions of interest are with Christine by 15 September 2008. We will then meet briefly at the Wellington NPC tournament to discuss this in more detail with those who have expressed interest and are present.